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| Florence hopes to host 2011 Tour de France Grand Depart |
2014 will mark the centenary of Tuscany’s greatest ever cyclist, Gino Bartali, twice winner of the Tour de France. Bartali's son Andrea has been pushing for the Florence to host the 2014 Grand Départ. Last Thursday, he was invited to meet with Florence’s deputy mayor, Dario Nardella, who told him that a formal request to stage the start of the 2014 race had been sent to race director Christian Prudhomme at organisers ASO, the company that owns and manages the Tour de France. “Finally, the go-ahead from the council,” said Bartali, quoted in today’s La Gazzetta Sportiva (the Sunday edition of the Gazzetta dello Sport). “It’s been five years since I’ve followed this project,” he added, “it would be a beautiful gift.”
Bartali, who died ten years ago, won the Tour de France twice, in 1938 and 1948, which remains the biggest gap between victories in the race by an individual cyclist. His widow, Adriana, referring to the prospect of his being commemorated by the 2014 race, said “Gino would have been proud of this too.” While the Tour de France nowadays tends to start abroad every two or three years, and has done so 18 times, mainly in the Low Countries, since the first foreign Grand Départ in Amsterdam in 1954, it has never begun in Italy, which of course has its own Grand Tour in the shape of the Giro d’Italia.
The 2011 Tour de France starts in the Vendée region of France and will have a start/finish in the Italian Alps. The 2012 Tour de France will start in Liège, Belgium. The 2013 race, the 100th edition of the event, is rumoured to be starting in Corsica, the first time that the Mediterranean island, birthplace of Napoleon, will have hosted the race. There is no shortage of options for Spyns future Tour de France tours.
Spyns is an active travel company based in Whister, BC (Canada) and Beaujolais France. Spyns specializes in 2011 Tour de France packages for both riders and non-riders. We specialize in providing clients with Tour de France bike and non-biking packages with Paris grandstand seats and VIP access. Spyns offers active holidays to Europe including trips to the 2011 Tour de France. For more information about Spyns 2011 Tour de France tours, please go to http://www.tdf-tours.com/ or http://www.spyns.com/. You can also call us toll-free at 1.888.825.4720.
